Take Me Away
by StealerOfDreams
Summary: As he waits in the dark, he despairs. The Doctor, Rose and Jack. On hold Until There's a Time and a Place is complete
1. Prologue: Despair

_**Prologue**_

It was the silence he couldn't bear.

It was deafening, and everything he had, it penetrated. His mind, his dreams and his heart were full of the sound of it, and he soon forgot what it was to hear. He tried to fill the quiet, with soft speech, or with his own singing.

But as the time flew by, he also forgot his own voice. No longer could he hear his own breath, or feel the pain that had once racked his body. He thought it as relief when the pain first stopped, but sooner begged for it to return, just for a sign that he was still alive.

It was impossible to tell how long he had been in this place, as time was possible to tell. No light entered his vision, and he wondered if this was due to the darkness, or if he was blind.

Despair entered him, became him, or did he become it? The powerful emotion swamped every other, the anger he had once felt, the worry of what was to come, and the memory of who he had once been.

All he could do was wish for death to take him, but it never did. Day after day of waking up to the darkness, he cursed God for leaving him in this place. This was not life, it he was indeed alive, there was only despair, and now once again anger.

And as he became weaker, knowing that death was close, he felt happiness for the first time, because he would soon leave this place. He would leave this oblivion, this consciousness, and this curse.

And as he fell asleep for what he thought the last time, he was happy.

But once again, he was denied the thing he longed for. Again, he woke up to the silence, and the darkness, and the despair.

And he heard, heard his scream. His scream of rage at whoever was keeping him here, his scream of angst at the life he knew he once had that he could no longer remember, and his scream at himself, for not being able to just DIE.

He raged, he screamed, he banged on the walls that were only wide enough to keep him inside, and he no longer felt despair, only the rage that was consuming him.


	2. Chapter One: The Beginning

_**Take Me Away**_

_Chapter One_

Unaware if she was waking or falling, Rose opened her eyes. Though, into the real world, or into a dream?

As she rose from the bed in which she had been sleeping, she glanced around the room for the telltale signs of a dream. Nope – no dancing elephants, no wild parties or pashing boys.

She was almost disappointed. Till she glanced upon the sleeping figure of Captain Jack, and the Doctor's still figure. And her next thought was that she wouldn't miss a moment of them for the world.

The Doctor glanced around his chair, and grinned insanely to see she was awake.

"Thought you'd never wake up! You humans sleep your lives away you know? In that time you've just been sleeping, we could have visited the moons of Equadie and come back!"

Rose rolled her eyes. The days always started like this.

"Oh, no I didn't know! Why don't you tell us some more about the lovely moons and compare them to the mundane lives of humans?"

"Hey… who's mundane?" Jack muttered from his place on the small couch across the room. "Keep it down would you? Some of us are trying to sleep."

Completely ignoring him, the Doctor continued.

"Nah, not much of an interesting place, Equadie. Though the people there do bare a remarkable resemblance to mushrooms."

"Mushroom people are on Alpha 5 of the Tatrehedraqu System Doc. Equadie is the one with the man eating Kantilla." Jack murmured. The never ceasing battle between the men amazed Rose, even though Jack had told her in confidence that he knew he had no chance against the 900 year old Time lord. He just liked stirring the Doctor up.

"Ah. So it is."

Giving up on the chance that he was going to get anymore sleep, Jack threw off the blanket covering him and headed towards the bathroom.  
"Don't use up all the shampoo!" Rose called after him, unsure if he heard as the door automatically locked behind him.

She shook her head and glanced back at the Doctor.

"So, where are we going today?"

He grinned. That was never a good sign. But then again he was always grinning, but they were also always in trouble. So she just did what she always did, smile and nod, humour the crazy person.

"Ahhh Rose. Where to start?"


	3. Interlude: Broken

Interlude - Broken 

"_Is he broken?"_

_The question pierced through the silence that had long accompanied him. He was sure that he had been dead, and that this was Hell. To live out the end of eternity in nothing but silence, in his own private little coffin._

_But the voice, the voice that was loud and strong and frightening, convinced him that he was still here, still alive, still in the game. The game, yeah. Wasn't everything in life a game? You won some, you lost even more. _

_The voice frightened him, was this voice a good thing, or a bad? Was it someone that someone had come to end his suffering? Or someone else, cruel, to prolong it?_

_He doubted he would ever answer his own questions; he was surprised he had even lasted long enough to hear this voice. He took this sign, that this is what he had held on for._

_Why he was still alive._

_He would be taken out of this place, this horrible, dark, silent, place._

_A brilliant light interrupted his thoughts, blinding him. He would have raised his arms to block the light, but he no longer had the strength. He remembered once being strong, strong, and brave, and loved. He often wondered if these things were dreams, dreamt up by his unconscious mind to taunt him at what he no longer had._

_What he had lost._

_The piercing light dissipated, as an object moved in front of it to stop its path. He saw a man, not old, but not young, a man who looked kind, so he closed his eyes, trusting himself to this stranger._

_He did not open his eyes, when he was heaved out of his stone coffin by his ankles, arms trailing behind him. _

_He did not open his eyes, when he felt the hands of another, brushing over his body, checking for signs of life._

_He did not open his eyes, when the man, a doctor he presumed, pronounced him ready, whatever that meant. _

_He did not open his eyes, when his mouth was opened and he felt cool liquid trickling in. Coughing and spluttering, his stomach heaving, not able to cope with this after being so long without water._

_He did not open his eyes, when he was lifted, placed onto a table, and a tube inserted into his arm, and another into his nose._

_Then there was silence again. And he screamed. He could no longer stand the silence, and could barely stand the darkness in front of his eyes. He heard feet tapping on the floor, and voices taking the place of the silence. Soothing voices, nice voices. They stayed with him, speaking to him softly, not letting him go back to that place._

_Understanding._

_And he opened his eyes, and saw a man, a stranger, but familiar. The man who pulled him out of that place, the man who saved him._

_The man smiled with friendly eyes, said he was safe, and called him "Jack."_


End file.
